Description:
Position summary
A&I Distributors is a fourth-generation, family- and employee-owned wholesale lubricants distributor, founded in Butte in 1924. The company operates branches across the Northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest, including Montana, Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Oregon, and Washington. The HR Specialist sits in Billings and owns day-to-day people operations so branch managers and ownership can stay focused on customers, inventory, and delivery.
This is a hands-on specialist role, not an HR director seat. The person builds reliable processes around hiring, onboarding, payroll support in Paylocity, benefits administration, employee records, and multi-state compliance, and is the first call for managers on routine people questions. Montana employment rules are the home base. For every other employee, wage, leave, posting, and final-pay rules follow the state where that employee works. Policy decisions, compensation philosophy, and employee-relations issues with legal exposure stay with ownership.
Position Responsibilities
Talent and onboarding
Post roles, screen applicants, schedule interviews, and coordinate offers with the hiring manager for warehouse, driver, inside sales, and office positions in Billings and at the branches.
Run a consistent onboarding path: new-hire paperwork, I-9, direct deposit, benefits enrollment window, safety orientation handoff, system access requests, and a 30/60/90 check-in. The checklist is the same; the state forms follow the work location.
Maintain job descriptions and a simple interview guide so hiring does not restart from scratch each time.
Coordinate offboarding: final pay on the timeline required by the employee's work state, benefits end dates, equipment and access return, and exit notes for the manager.
Payroll support and time
Administer Paylocity for new hires, status changes, deductions, PTO balances, and terminations. Prepare payroll for review; ownership or finance approves before it runs.
Audit timesheets and exception reports in Paylocity. Catch missing punches, meal-period issues where the work state requires them, and overtime before payroll closes.
Apply leave by work state. Some operating states mandate paid sick leave or paid family and medical leave. Others, including Montana, do not, so those employees follow company PTO policy plus federal FMLA where the company is covered. Do not apply one state's leave program to another state's employees.
Support year-end items: W-2 distribution, ACA reporting inputs if applicable, and benefit reconciliation in Paylocity.
Benefits and employee records
Administer medical, dental, vision, and ancillary benefits in Paylocity. Run open enrollment, new-hire enrollment, qualifying events, and carrier or TPA questions.
Be the employee-facing contact for claims-payment questions (plan administrator, network, and payment platforms) and know when to escalate to the broker.
Keep the personnel file complete and confidential: applications, offer letters, acknowledgments, performance notes, and medical information stored separately.
Maintain the employee handbook and the required postings for each operating state. Track acknowledgment completion.
Compliance and employee relations support
Keep Montana employment practices current, including the Wage Payment Act, the Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act, equal pay, and pregnancy-leave accommodation. Montana is not a pure at-will state in the way most managers expect.
Keep a current one-page rule sheet for each operating state covering final pay, overtime, meal and rest breaks, paid leave, required postings, and any pay-disclosure rule that applies when a job is advertised for work in that state.
Support workers' compensation claims intake and OSHA recordkeeping handoff with operations. HR does not run warehouse safety; HR makes sure the paperwork and return-to-work path are clean.
Coach managers on documentation, progressive discipline, and accommodation requests. Escalate harassment, discrimination, wage, or termination-risk issues to ownership the same day. Montana discharge decisions need a written reason and a clean file.
Coordinate required trainings (harassment prevention, safety orientation acknowledgment) and keep completion records.
Support background checks, drug screening where used for safety-sensitive roles, and DOT driver-file handoff with operations. HR owns the process; operations owns driver qualification content.
What this role does not own
Setting pay ranges, commission plans, or bonus distributions.
Final approval of payroll, terminations, or handbook policy changes.
Warehouse safety program design, lift inspections, or DOT compliance content.
IT system administration, ERP permissions, or customer billing.
Those stay with ownership, finance, operations, or IT. The specialist prepares the work and flags the decision. Requirements:
Job Requirements
Three or more years in HR operations, payroll support, or a combined office-manager / HR role in a multi-location or hourly-heavy company.
Hands-on Paylocity experience. You have built a new hire, changed a rate, run or prepared a payroll, and answered a deduction or PTO question without a ticket. Equivalent HCM experience (ADP, UKG, Paychex) is acceptable only with a fast ramp on Paylocity.
Working knowledge of Montana employment law, especially final pay and the Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act, or a clear plan to learn it in the first 60 days. Comfort applying a different state's wage and leave rules when the employee works outside Montana.
Comfort with confidential information and a clear line between coaching a manager and making a legal call.
Microsoft 365 fluency: Outlook, Excel (lookups, simple pivots), Word, SharePoint, and Teams.
Valid driver's license and ability to visit a branch a few times a year. Billings is the home base; travel is the exception.
Preferred
Experience in distribution, wholesale, transportation, or another operation with drivers and warehouse staff.
Benefits administration through a broker and TPA, including open enrollment in Paylocity.
Multi-state handbook or payroll experience, DOT driver-file coordination, or workers' compensation intake.
Ties to the Billings or broader Montana labor market, so local hiring does not start from zero.
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